


"Dropping" by Blair

by wneleh



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series, The Sentinel
Genre: Blair writes fanfic, Episode: s02e16 Dead Drop, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 22:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wneleh/pseuds/wneleh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A <i>Dead Drop</i> epilogue in which Blair works out post-elevator angst by writing a fanfic of his very own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Dropping" by Blair

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by Charon's "The Subculture of Fanfiction According to Blair Sandburg", as posted to SentinelAngst. I read this the same day Dana asked the list what we thought Jim's and Blair's favorite "Star Trek" series would be. In Charon's story, she has Blair explain fan fiction to Jim, and admit to writing it himself. Blair says that one reason for writing fan fiction is to work out personal traumas. Since Blair has no shortage of personal traumas, I got to thinking, which of his many issues, or really bad days, might Blair try to work out in a Star Trek fanfic?

Back during his undergrad years, Blair had had a roommate named Joey Bolt. Joey had considered himself something of a philosopher, and Blair had had to restrain himself from throttling the guy the third time Joey had wondered aloud whether all of life was actually a dream. His dream, that is, which was the bit that had pissed Blair off.

Something Joey had said once had really stuck with Blair, though; he'd proposed that life would be so much easier to get right if it were like a movie, with a red light that turned on when something worthy of being recorded was happening. At the time, Blair had argued that it was the down times of life that made all the difference, that you learned what was important to people by watching them doing what they considered mundane. And that you built relationships (though, being a 19-year-old at the time, he was sure he hadn't used a mushy, girly word like "relationships") during all those times that would never make the final cut of a Cameron flick.

Over the past year or so, Blair had come to wish that the world conformed to Joey's ideal. It would be great to know, for example, if, on any given day, someone were going to try to kill him. Though, given his life since he'd hooked up with Jim, Blair surmised that, maybe, an ordinary, run-of-the-mill looney or escaped felon or globe-trotting assassin taking a pot shot at him might not even register as significant in the "Life of Blair."

Today, though... today had been rough. During most of his previous really cruddy days, he'd been so busy that he'd been able to run on nerve, obfuscation, and adrenaline until things had resolved themselves, or Jim had saved the day, or what have you. Usually, by the time he could give any serious thought to how close he was to buying the farm, things were over, and getting too worked up seemed a useless waste of emotional energy. Today's misadventure, from the recognition that something was terribly wrong with their elevator, to their eventual release, had only taken an hour. What an hour, though! He'd rarely felt so helpless and so frustrated.

And now, sitting here alone in the loft, he had no idea what to do with himself.

Candles. Candles would calm him. Another of Joey's observations was that people in TV-land all had access to Dial-A-Candle, a service which would instantly surround your hot-tub or fill your underground lair with dozens of lit candles, no mussing around with matches and broken wicks and awkward wax blobs required. Absent Dial-A-Candle, Blair made do with a semi-circle of six unscented white candles in wrought-iron holders that his mother, Naomi, had passed along to him years ago.

Okay, time to meditate.

Ten minutes later, Blair gave up, stiff, bored, and still a bit freaked. Didn't surprise him, really - meditation, for him, was more a way to let his subconscious figure things out than anything. Or to clear his mind to tackle a new task. Not to come to peace with things.

Blast this culture of his, with no really good I-almost-died rituals beyond getting shit-faced! Well, that wasn't quite true. Giving his statement at the station had been cathartic. He'd long since learned to eliminate emotional truths from statements and just give the facts, but at least the after-the-fact recitation of events usually staved off the repressive response. And then there was the getting-ragged-on-by-your-buddies ritual, which he and Jim had had a few minutes to engage in before Jim had had to deal with the mountain of paperwork which accompanied using force in the line of duty. Blair had tried to help with the paperwork like he usually did, but all he'd found himself doing was clicking his pen up-down-up-down-up until Jim had thrown him out of the bullpen.

Let's see... other rituals... well, there was the official-approval-of-your-superiors thing which manifested itself in brief manly shoulder-clasps, hospital visits by CO's, and medals for bravery. None of which were likely to come his way. Heck, he wasn't even going to get the girl, and that really sucked, even if she was a complete piece of work.

Getting shit-faced was looking better and better.

And then, of course, there was fan fiction. When Blair was 11, he'd written his first piece, a Star Trek story in which a young genius named Blaine Skytalker saved the Enterprise (the original one - this was a few years before "The Next Generation") from a Romulan-Klingon alliance. Spock, amazed, had adopted young Skytalker, hoping to learn from him, and Kirk had written a glowing recommendation for Star Fleet Academy. "A travesty to allow such talent to return to Earth in any capacity," Blair had had Spock intone, which pretty much summed up how Blair had felt about his own life circa 1980. Oh, and there had been a huge award ceremony, with Blaine receiving medal upon medal.

Come to think, Blair wasn't sure he'd actually written out the battle. No, he'd just done some set-up and then skipped to the ending resolution stuff. A PWP piece, in modern terminology, Blair supposed. Which had served its purpose; he'd felt a warm glow writing the bits he'd done, and he'd read and reread them.

Over the next few years, he'd written a bit more - a resolution to an X-Files cliff-hanger, an A-Team-meets-the-Dukes-of-Hazzard story to piss off an annoying creative writing teacher in college. Oh, and a Joey-Bolt-meets-Tasha-Yar story for Joey's 20th birthday. And he read a bit on-line now and then, mostly X-Files stuff but also the occasional Man From UNCLE story.

Funny, he couldn't remember being all that close to Joey, and he had no idea where the guy was now. So why was he thinking so much about him? Oh, yeah, it was Joey who had explained to him that the feeling of going upward that you felt at the end up a ride down in an elevator was due to deceleration. And that, if you combined stopping with jumping as high as you could (they'd been, well, shit-faced), you could land hard enough to make your knees hurt. Up until then, he'd thought of elevators as safe havens, that it was only by falling down an empty elevator shaft, a la not-Doctor-Crusher on LA Law, that you could get killed; afterwards, he never quite trusted them. He wished, now, that a red light had turned on somewhere the first time he'd felt uneasy in an elevator, to let him know that it was something he should heed.

So how would Blaine Skytalker, now all grown up, have handled himself in that damn elevator this afternoon?

It was still a couple of hours before Jim was due home; he really didn't want to risk drinking without a little company. Maybe he'd revisit old Skytalker - better rename him, though. Blair fetched his laptop and a Coke and refolded himself on the sofa.

"Dropping" seemed the perfect title.

\- - - - - -

Ensign Blaine Sanword was in a hurry. As usual.

A (very junior) Star Fleet officer, he was also pursuing a doctorate in anthropology through a joint program of the Star Fleet Postgraduate School and the Pan-University of Rainier, one of Earth's finest schools. His area of research was the affect of newly encountered alien cultures on humanity's interpretation of itself. A fascinating field, as his boss, Mr. Spock, might have said, had the Vulcan cared a whit about human behavior beyond its most rudimentary aspects.

It was Mr. Spock's fault he was in a hurry. Also, as usual. As part of his program, his shipboard duties were supposed to be limited to 48 hours a week. The one time he'd tried to subtly discuss this with Mr. Spock, the Vulcan had dryly observed that he had obtained HIS Earth doctorate over a course of months during which the Enterprise, under her previous commander, Christopher Pike, had saved the universe seven times.

OK, maybe that wasn't exactly what Mr. Spock had said. Actually, he'd just raised an eyebrow at Blaine. But the message had been clear. Blaine was there to monitor some of the Enterprise's more touchy scientific instrumentation and, when needed, accompany away-missions and look for social-political land-mines.

Which he regularly and diligently reported up the chain of command (don't screw the princess, dance/don't dance with the prime minister, etc. etc.), only to have his reports completely ignored. Kirk went with his gut: Blaine respected this. But, frankly, while he enjoyed exploring strange new worlds and meeting and observing new civilizations, he felt his role on the ship would be better filled by a nerdy 16-year-old with a talent for gadgets.

Today, though, between delta radiation detector diagnostics ordered by Mr. Spock, Blaine had squeezed in a two-hour visit to the main library in the premier university in the capital city of the Hijubna people. The Hijubna were a humanoid race that had been in contact with Starfleet for almost 60 years, but only in the past decade had they opened up their cities a bit. They were a graceful people, with a linguistic system that was amenable to human replication. Blaine expected that they would have an increasing influence on galactic culture over the next few years. Probably just superficially, but one could never tell. Today, Blaine had been able to observe the behavior of students at study, getting a feel for them in an environment whose human counterpart he understood.

The atmosphere of Hijub was heavy in peltron particles, complicating transporter use. As part of the planet's effort to increase extraHijubnian contact, they'd built a level III transporter facility in the capital city, which could safely send to, and accept signals from, ships in orbit. On Hijub, though, one couldn't simply transport to wherever one wished, like on earth. So Blaine had flown a semi-intelligent winged donkey from the transporter facility to the university library, then braved the elevator to carry him to the study lounges at the top of the 40-floor building. Now, his shore-leave time ending, he was in severe risk of being tardy for resuming Mr. Spock's detector diagnostic tests, mostly because he hadn't realized that one WAITED for elevators.

The last elevator on Earth had been decommissioned in 2104, of course, after the much safer technology of turbolifts had been embraced by the entire planet. So, it was with some unease that Blaine had entered the small box, suspended in air by ropes and friction (he supposed), once already that day. The trip had been uneventful, though, and he reasoned that millions, perhaps billions, of Hijubna also rode similar contraptions every day without incident. So he would fine taking one back down to street-level. Right?

Waiting for the elevator, Blaine occupied himself with observing the Hijubna he stood with. An older male in the flowing brown robes of the worker class; a slightly younger woman in the orange and mauve robes of the administrative class - perhaps a librarian? Was that what that bit of blue meant? A man about his age in the silver worn by those who dealt regularly with money; and a strikingly beautiful woman in robes of every color of the rainbow. He smiled at her as they stepped onto the elevator; a returned stare indicated, in the Hijubna way, that she would not rebuff further conversation.

"Excuse me, miss," Blaine said, his sub-cranial universal translator chip providing the Hijubna words, "I am not familiar with your robe coloration. May I show my ignorance and ask for an explanation?"

"They are my own," said the woman. "We are, perhaps, a freer people than you might have been told."

The older man and woman both smiled at this, not unkindly, Blaine thought. The younger man almost seemed to snarl; the elevator stopped, and he stalked out. As the doors closed, Blaine noticed that he'd left a case of some sort behind. A real conservative, Blaine reasoned, to have been so badly rattled by the young woman's robes.

Suddenly, the elevator jerked to a stop. Blaine's companions looked startled, but not overly alarmed. "Does this happen often?" he asked.

"No," said the brown-robed workman as he pushed a red button on the control panel.

Over the intercom, a male voice announced, "This is library security. Is everybody all right?"

"We're all fine," said the older woman. "What is wrong?"

"I don't know," said the voice. "We're checking it right now. We'll have you down in a second. Just stay calm."

The older man chuckled. "Nothing good in life ever comes with an admonition to stay calm," he said.

Blaine chuckled too. He couldn't have agreed more.

A moment later, Blaine felt the sickening feeling of freefall, then found himself crashing into the floor. The older woman screamed, and Blaine himself felt like joining her. Not behavior becoming of a Star Fleet officer, though; instead, he asked, "everyone all right here?"

Stunned and shaky, everyone nodded. Blaine touched his communicator. "Enterprise, Ensign Sanword here. Um, I could use a beam-out."

"Jack Parsons here, Blaine," came a voice out of his communicator. "I'd love to help you out, but we don't dare send living matter through this atmosphere, or even point-to-point on the planet, unless we're going to another fixed facility."

"Uh, yeah..." said Blaine. "It's just that me and some other folks are stuck in this elevator and it just did a freefall drop."

"Elevators? They have elevators? I thought they were banned," said Parsons.

"Mr. Sanword, I'm with building security and we are investigating the situation," broke in Mr. Spock's voice over an unseen intercom. Spock was here! Sanword was both very relieved, and very happy he'd managed not to scream during their fall.

"Mr. Spock, sir! You're in the building?"

"Yes - I, too, was interested in this library."

"That's great, sir," Blaine said, then realized he was about to start babbling. "Is there anything I can do from in here?"

"Not at this moment, Ensign. Only know that we are working hard to get you out."

Okay, Spock knew more about human psychology than he let on.

"What's the situation," Blaine asked.

"It seems a terrorist is threatening to drop your elevator car to the bottom of the shaft unless he gets five million Hijubna credits."

"What - what are we going to do about this, sir?"

"For now, we are going to allow the local authorities to operate unhindered, according to their customs and procedures, in keeping with the Prime Directive. I must say, Ensign, that this is a situation in which your particular background would be most useful, were you not one of the hostages."

"Uh, thanks Mr. Spock," said Blaine.

A moment later, the intercom again crackled to life.

"Madam Catatonia?" a male voice said.

"Catatonia!" said the older woman and the man almost in unison. "At your service, madam," the man added.

Catatonia flashed a quick, nervous smile. "Yes, Gel? I'm here," she said in response to the voice. "I am uninjured."

Blaine looked around at his companions. "Could someone explain..."

"Madam Catatonia Sebong is heiress to much of this city, and is related to our royal family," explained the other woman. "Her family are great patrons of education, and her father has his offices in this very building."

Blaine felt relief. "Ah, great. Your family will stop at nothing to see you unharmed, right?"

Catatonia refused to meet his eyes. "Not necessarily, my offworld friend."

They spent the next several minutes swapping names and stories of what had brought them to the building that day. The older women was Sher Lenol, a librarian, as Blaine had surmised. The man was an electrician named Gol Donn, father of five. Catatonia remained silent; after their basic personal information had been exchanged, the others also stood silently, then, in mute agreement, sat on the elevator's floor as one.

Gol spoke for them all after another infinite moment had passed. "This is taking too long. Something is wrong."

On cue, Blaine's communicator chirped.

Mr. Spock's voice was a welcome sound; his message was not. "It seems that it is against the cultural beliefs of the Hijubna to negotiate with terrorists," he said.

Blaine looked at Gol and Sher. "Is that true?" he asked. "Then why is some kook doing this?"

Sher said, "Strictly speaking, in our culture acts of aggression are dealt with by courageous pacifism. We do not fight each other, and we sacrifice individuals as needed to preserve the safety and peace of the whole. This has been our IDEAL; but, unlike your Federation's Vulcans, we are not bound by logic."

"My father is of the old school," murmured Catatonia. "Principles are more important than people."

"Old School!" said Gol. "Things were no better in the elder days than now."

"Sounds a lot like Earth," said Blaine. He focused on Catatonia. "Perhaps you could speak to your father?"

"He will not speak to me," she replied. "I married very young, and I made the mistake of picking my own husband. I was essentially disowned."

"I'm sorry," said Blaine. "I'm sure your father is putting that aside now..."

And the elevator dropped again.

"Are you all right, Ensign?" came Mr. Spock's voice over the elevator intercom as soon as they stopped.

"Uh, yeah," said Blaine, "Except..." Sher Lenol was on her side, holding her ankle and moaning.

Blaine crawled over to where Gol was checking Sher out. The older woman's ankle was clearly hurt badly.

"Sher's ankle is broken, I think," Blaine reported. "I think we are okay otherwise."

Catatonia was starting to cry. "I am so sorry," she said. "My father just does not care, about me or anybody."

Blaine added frustrated and enraged to scared and bruised. "Mr. Sebong!" he shouted. "If you can hear me, and you have any compassion, you had better start paying attention to our situation! Whoever is in control of this elevator isn't playing by your rules!"

An unfamiliar voice came over the intercom. "An astute observation, off-world scum!"

Sher had managed to sit upright again, her injured leg stretched out in front of her. "Madam, I beg of you. Please try to reason with your father."

Catatonia shook her head. "The man that I married worked for my father," she said. "He was fired, leaving us penniless. I have tried to see my father four times in the past two weeks. He was refused me."

She paused, then continued in a small voice. "We have no home now, barely enough money for food. And, I'm with child."

Blaine looked towards the security camera. "Mr. Sebong, did you hear that?"

Mr. Spock's voice now came over the intercom. "Mr. Sanword, there is a human song I think might improve everyone's spirits. I believe it is called the 'Hokey Pokey?'"

What was Spock saying - he must need a diversion! Blaine stood up. "Since we are stuck in here for a bit longer, my CO suggests I share some Earth culture. Sher, I realize you can't move, but Gol and Catatonia, I'd be most pleased if you'd join me?"

Gol stood quickly, figuring something was up. Catatonia, in her normal languid fashion, followed.

"Okay," said Blaine, "Here we go..."

As they stuck their left hands and right hands in and out, Blaine heard the telltale murmur of a phaser rifle at work. Heat mode? Was someone welding? Of course! The car couldn't move if it was welded to the shaft.

After the 'Hokey Pokey', Blaine taught his fellow captives the ancient Earth dances known as the Macarena, Chicken Dance, and Space Fever, all learned during a sophomore year course on Crazy Years culture he's really gotten into.

Finally, the murmur outside their car stopped. "We're safe," Blaine mouthed.

Then Spock's voice came over the intercom again. "Ensign, please open the case."

The case left by the original fifth occupant of their car. Blaine had paid it no attention, but now it seemed ominous, malevolent.

"At once, Blaine. You have no choice."

Blaine carefully surveyed the case. Murmuring "please contact whatever deities seem appropriate," he opened the case.

Gol looked over his shoulder. "That's a common explosive!"

"And that's a timer. They look the same the universe over," said Blaine.

And again, the elevator dropped. So much for the welding ability of a phaser rifle.

As Sher started to moan again, they were plunged into blackness.

"They must have cut the power," said Blaine, as Gol produced a light from his box of tools.

"So we can't drop!" exclaimed Gol.

"Yes, but the timer," said Sher. "It's counting down now!"

Sher turned and started to bang on the door. "Please let us out! My daughter needs me!"

Spock again spoke from the intercom. "Ensign, we have some new information you might find fascinating. It seems our terrorist is Madam Catatonia's husband."

Yes, fascinating indeed.

Blaine focused his attention on Catatonia, even more beautiful than before in the wavering lamplight. "When's he going to let you off?" he asked.

Catatonia just stared at him.

"He's going to let you off, right? Before a fall really hurts you? Before the bomb goes off?"

Again, Catatonia was crying. "He's going to stop the count-down in time. He promised me."

"When? When is he going to shut this off? We don't even know if he can hear us anymore," said Blaine.

"I didn't want any of this to happen," said Catatonia. "Frand said it was all for our baby. There was no other way."

Blaine's communicator again tweeped, this time baring the voice of Catatonia's father, presumably because the intercom was off-line now. "Catty?"

"Yes, Father?"

"My daughter... I want you to know that I'm sorry. I should not have passed judgement about your marriage. It's just - I have never had trust for Frand.

"We have paid the money. This will now end."

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Father," said Catatonia. "You were correct about Frand."

"Catatonia," said Blaine softly, "we have to find Frand. Where is he?"

"The 37th floor," she said. "Where the library has some of my family's jewels on exhibition."

Blaine relayed this information to Spock, then looked at the timer. Less than four minutes left.

"What are we going to do?" asked Gol.

Blaine tapped his communicator. "Enterprise."

"Yes, Blaine," came Jack Parson's voice. "We've been monitoring things from here. How are you doing?"

"Not so hot, Jack," said Blaine, "but I have an idea. Could you beam me in a phaser rifle?"

"Blaine, you know we can't transport very well onto Hijubna," Jack said. "We need 2' of clearance for any beaming."

"Then aim above our heads," Blaine said.

A moment later, a phaser rifle appeared six inches over where Gol crouched. Yup, not a great place to use a transporter. It rolled off the older man; Blaine grabbed it on the first bounce, and started to use it in drill mode, cutting a case-size hole in the floor.

"How can I help?" asked Gol.

"Just point the flashlight..."

Was it his imagination, or was the counter increasing in speed? Or was the rifle losing charge? Or, or, or...

Blaine stopped cutting and kicked downward, hard. Too hard - for a terrifying instant, he thought he, too, was to drop into the abyss. Gol's hands grasped him, though, and he fell backwards, safe. Then, taking the case, the men hurled it through the hole. Mere seconds later, the bomb exploded, shaking their car but leaving them unharmed.

"Earther, you are a credit to your kind!" said Sher. "If I were 15 years younger..."

A moment later, the lights came back on. "Ensign, Frand has been apprehended," came Spock's voice.

It took another 15 minutes for help to reach them. Blaine, Gol and Sher passed the time laughing and sharing stories; Catatonia remained quiet. Finally, a hole was drilled in the side of the car, and Hijubna rescue workers pulled them out.

The first to greet them were Hijubna security personnel, who grasped Catatonia by the arms. A man who Blaine realized must be her father came forward, and, ignoring the escort, hugged his daughter. He then turned to Blaine. "I see my ways are not necessarily the wisest," he said to them. "Thank you, sir, for your part in saving my daughter's life. And the life of my grandchild."

Blaine nodded, then looked past them. Mr. Spock, Captian Kirk, and Dr. McCoy were gathered just down the hall. Blaine walked to them. "Um, I think I'll be a little late resuming those diagnostics, sir," he said.

"I understand," said Mr. Spock. "You are excused - this time."

McCoy looked him up and down, then conducted a quick tricorder check. "You seem fine. But I prescribe the rest of the afternoon off. Doctor's orders."

"Yes sir!" said Blaine. He wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he was pretty sure it was going to be on ground level.

Kirk turned to his two most trusted advisors. "What does Ensign Sanword do for us, anyway?" he asked.

"He's your anthropologist, sir."

"I didn't know I had an anthropologist."

"I've seen some of his reports," McCoy said. "Ensign Sanword has been persistently telling you how to avoid getting us into the sorts of messes we sometimes get into."

"Messes, Doctor? I think our record vis-a-vis interspecies relationships has been exemplary."

"It's *relationships* he usually advises you to avoid."

"You still have a bit to learn then," mused Kirk, smiling at Blaine. "Still, let's see if we can't figure out a way to use your talents more regularly - and less spectacularly. And I suppose we can scare up a medal of some sort?"

"The Hijubna plan a ceremony in his honor for this evening, I believe," replied Mr. Spock. "I anticipate that the young man will collect a bauble or two there."

"Very good," said Kirk. "Dress attire this evening, gentlemen."

\- - - - - -

Well, that didn't suck, Blair decided, though he felt a bit guilty for not somehow working Jim's role in the day's adventure into the story. Oh well, if he wanted, Jim could always write his own cathartic fanfic, a thought which left Blair grinning broadly.

Blair printed out the story, then opened the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet. Yup, the folder was still there, holding the typewritten bits of "Blaine Skytalker Saves the Day" and computer printouts of "Where Yar Going, Joseph?", the other fanfics he'd written, and a few completely original pieces.

There was a noise at the front door, so Blair quickly placed his new story in the folder and shut the cabinet. Best that Jim not know about this side of him.

Jim stuck his head into Blair's room. "You doing okay, Partner?"

"Yeah, I am, Jim," said Blair, realizing he meant it.

*** The End ***


End file.
